Electric Mayhem: the (no)ir of Marvel Noir – Wolverine and Daredevil

    

    

Marvel Noir is the latest incarnation of a set of story ideas that takes the characters that we are familiar with and re-imagines them in some capacity whether it is apes or zombies or, as it says here on the label, noir. Now noir comics aren’t new and some characters scream noir louder then others so this was a project I was looking forward to.

If this project consists of two parts, the marvel characters and noir, then we are already aware of one half of the equation–the characters, in this case Daredevil and Wolverine. So then, what is noir? Is it a style or a form or some combination of the two? Is noir atmosphere, murky shadows and other visual characteristics; is noir the everyman who makes a mistake only to pay a heavy price by the end; is noir the feelings of powerlessness, isolation, betrayal, cynicism and instability. Does noir have to be any of these things?

Over the years the two terms, noir and hardboiled, have become so intermangled that no one knows what they mean. The struggle/quest to define has resulted in such great definitions over the years that some of them might be worth a look.

    

“Hardboiled is when the violence happens on the page”

    

“Hardboiled is about toughness and noir is about pain”

    

“The Crucifixion is noir and the Resurrection hardboiled”

    

“Hard-boiled…fiction carries a cynical undertone to all aspects of it, carried by a protagonist who often wants not to feel that way, but knows better.”

    

“Noir is nothing but tragedy”

    

“Noir is the protagonist getting trapped in his own personal mousetrap that he has helped to set up from the beginning.”

    

“Noir has few heroes, and a feeling of hopelessness, and fatal resignation.”

    

“Hard-boiled heroes still want things to come out right, and will win partial victories, but it’s rarely enough.”

    

“Take the Aristotelian definition of tragedy; remove the rule about the hero having to start from a high social position, and you’re close to noir.”

    

“Noir is working-class tragedy”

    

“Noir has been around forever, even if we didn’t always have a label to define it. Literary noir is the same, but the ‘literary’ epithet simply suggests that there’s more internalization.”

    

“Hardboiled merely refers to style: tough and colloquial.”

    

“Noir – You’re fucked on page one, and things go downhill from there.”

    

“If it didn’t sell much (but was critically acclaimed), it was “noir.” If it sold well, then it was “hard-boiled.”

    

“You have a protagonist who leads a pretty unobjectionable life, right up until the moment they each make a decision that is completely out of character for them. Each of these acts sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the character’s downfall, and as such, in the classic sense, “noir.”

    

“Hard-boiled is easier. It’s tough, colloquial, usually either private eye or town-tamer fiction.”

    

“Hardboiled = Tough Noir = Screwed”

    

“Hardboiled characters don’t talk the talk, just walk the walk.”

    

“Noir” (it’s the antithesis of “Disney”)”

    

“American “noir” is like American blues music, a victim of its own popularity. It’s become a routine, a riff everybody knows and many can imitate.”

    

“Despite its name, noir requires more than black, it requires white… and an infinite spectrum of greys.”

    

    

Got all that straight? Didn’t think so. Like all things that are fuzzy to define we feel that we can, in the immortal words of Justice Potter Stewart, recognize it when we see it. Noir especially as a term is probably the most over used. At times it feels like the literary equivalent of the word ‘smurf’.

So now that the waters have been further muddied lets add in another dynamic, what I refer to as The Constitutionality of Noir and Hardboiled.

**Oh dear god, will this ramble ever end**

Last year over at Rara-Avis someone wondered aloud if The Dark Knight could be considered noir. This query prompted a lengthy and interesting discussion. A large facet of this conversation was that the old and never ending ‘what is noir?’ and ‘what is hardboiled?’ questions reared their annual whack-a-mole heads yet again. When these debates rise every few months they are like the equivalent of spinning around in circles really fast: it’s really fun at first but then at some point you fall over and throw up all over yourself.

At some point though I had a light bulb moment and I realized that this never ending argument could be cast in different terms and parallels another discussion very closely: the interpretability of the U.S. Constitution.

**WTF is he talking about now?!?!?**

In reductive terms I believe that one could say that this is a letter of the law vs. spirit of the law debate. You see on one side of the fence you have the Original Intent folks, those who believe that the Constitution can only mean exactly what it said at the time it was written. Then on the other side of the fence you have the Living Document folks, those who believe that the Constitution is a document which may be continually edited and updated to fit the needs of society.

There are some who maintain a strict definition of noir and any variance from the path is grounds for instant dismissal from consideration. Then there are others who hold a more open ended, no boundaries, inclusive rather then exclusive approach to noir. Whether noir (and hardboiled) is mutable will probably never be settled and you’ll just have to decide where you stand.

So then, if the term noir is deliciously vague then what is to be expected with the Marvel Noir stories?

In terms of a comics noir visual style Sin City seems to stand as the modern alpha and omega with all other as imitators. You can open most noir comics to almost any panel and it could pass as a Sin City Panel; usage of high contrasts, shadows, a reverse negative type effect, usages of light and dark in unconventional ways. Part of me appreciates this style because it can be so stark, stylistic, dramatic and effective but another part wonders if there is another way. Surely this can’t be the only visual palette from which to draw from (and one only has to look at the art of R. M. Guéra on Scalped to see other possibilities).

This monochromatic effect is most fully felt in the opening of the Wolverine story. The Wolverine Noir story should really be titled Wolverine Hardboiled. It’s a PI type tale with Wolvie inserted in as one of two PI’s. Being a PI fits Wolverine like a glove. He is in many ways the perfect character for the brooding, tough guy character type that is the hardboiled American PI. Given the PI’s roots as a Ronin type figure it’s also fitting that Logan is trained as a young man in the art of the blade by his Asian gardener.

After reading the first issues of both I feel confident in saying that Wolverine Noir is stronger then Daredevil Noir. Whereas Daredevil gets bogged down in being an alternative origins tale that relies too much on the readers knowledge of the canonical one as a reaction point Wolverine assumes (rightly) that the reader is already familiar with the character and just plops him into a story. This to me is the right approach and is true to the intent of the Marvel Noir project idea.

Daredevil: Upon hearing about Daredevil’s inclusion in this series I had to wonder, with Frank Millers noir influenced run on Daredevil isn’t it already a kind of noir title. And if it was noir already then what exactly is Daredevil Noir supposed to be? The story was ok but not too terribly engaging. The framing device (particularly at the end) is a little forced. I sense that where this story is heading might be predictable but I’ve been wrong before. But the strength of a project like this is that even if the story proper is a little light then you are willing to forgive more easily since it is only 4 issues and I must admit to a strong desire to finish the story.

Wolverine: Rather then the In Medias Res opening of Daredevil, Wolverine starts with that fateful dame entrance into the office pleading her sob story of a case that has kicked off so many stories. The best part is how what starts out as such a clichéd opening gets turned on its ear by the end of the issue. The back story of this Logan is slowly worked in to a dramatic effect. The mystery of what happened in the past is very tantalizing and I find myself eager as to how it will unfold especially in how it relates to the present timeline. One interesting observation is how far into the story it is before Logan’s whips out his claws, and the flip side of this is that, as of now, how/why he has claws isn’t explained. Again this speaks to trusting the reader in a mini-series to just know who the characters are without having to explain everything.

Bottom Line: Wolverine Noir is off to a great start and tells a tight story and leaves you wanting more and Daredevil has some shortcomings but is still interesting. While neither story plumbs the emotional depths of a Scalped both are stylized treats and are recommended.